The young man was sitting, sprawled in the doorway between the room and the garden outside. His heavy kimono fell off one shoulder, showing the lighter red silk beneath, and an expanse of creamy white skin. His arms and legs were so skinny that the predominant image was of a doll, thrown in the corner and forgotten. He looked lonely, sadly pathetic, until his eyes swung around and pierced the darkness with their hatred.

"Who let you in here?" his voice was soft, but underlying the cloying child-like timbre was a hard edge that caused many to shiver in fear.

"I let myself in." The shadow was tall, leaning negligently against the doorframe, his shoulders broad enough to almost fill the length of the open door.

"Get out." the boy hissed, then turned back toward the garden, used to having his orders obeyed, he expected the intruder to leave.

"We need to talk Akito." he looked up as the man entered the room. Piercing dark blue eyes peaked out from behind small round glasses, a steady frown graced the man's lips.

"Guards!" Akito shrieked.

"They're all asleep." the lips smirked, "like I said, we need to talk, and interruptions are not welcome." He pushed down on Akito's shoulder as the young man tried to get to his feet to retaliate in some way. Akito, never steady at night to begin with, fell to the floor with a painful crash, bruising his elbow. The man knelt next to him and steadied him until he too was kneeling on the floor, facing the strange man.

"Who are you?"

"All you need to know about me, is that I am here to talk to you about your curse." he grinned, "but if you must call me something, then let me be known as Eriol, reincarnation of Clow."

Something inside Akito stirred restlessly at the naming of Eriol, the spirit inside him whispered nasty threats as Akito studied him. His black hair was silky, but not in a cut most Japanese men wore. The man wore a sport jacket over a blue Chinese buttoned up collar shirt. The mix should have seemed awkward, but somehow it combined to make the man seem more powerful than a simple suit should have.

"Then talk, and be on your way." Akito glared, pushing his robe up his shoulder in an angry, static motion. "Nothing you say will be of consequence."

"Not even if I told you I had a cure for you?"

"What are you selling?"

"Nothing you have, I need permission to view your books." Eriol shrugged. "I have a few pupils who are busy working on something at the moment, and I need them to study your family histories."

"Screw you." Akito hissed nastily, "My family's past is for my eyes only." he struggled back to his feet and thumped to the ground again as Eriol muttered something under his breath. Akito grabbed Eriol's shirt front and yanked with as much strength as he could gather, but only succeeded in unbalancing himself again. He landed in an ungainly sprawl at Eriol's knees.

"You don't want a cure, do you? You enjoy tugging everyone's strings."

"Who are you to judge me? ME?" he hissed, "I didn't ask for this!"

"Yes. You did." Eriol frowned and pushed the boy back up to a kneeling position.

"Nobody asked me if I wanted to be sick with this thing inside me!" Akito yelled, "I'm going to die! Horribly! And its all their fault!"

"Such a horrible little person you really are." Eriol shook his head. "Really, almost everyone in this family is."

"SHUT UP!"

"You know why this curse isn't broken yet? Because it should be! It should have been easy, "with ones acceptance of another and another's acceptance of himself!" Those are the curses goals, and this family has met them, in every single generation! I know! I've watched!"

"SHUT UP!"

"Its because this family is so incredibly selfish, childish idiots that you all are, you can't even spare an ounce of compassion for your own unborn children!"

"I didn't ask for this!"

"No! But you accepted it into your heart the moment you were born!" he shot back. "The others were all born with this same thing, this missing part of their heart that every child should have! Your parents were so incredibly busy with themselves that they left the pathway open for this curse, OVER and OVER again!"

"That's not my fault." Akito swiped the robe back up as it fell, he surged to his feet and pulled back his fist.

"You think you can harm me? Emperor?" his eyes glowed as he got to his own feet. The fist fell, suddenly Akito felt the thing inside him, the arrogance turned into a panic that he'd never felt before. He felt sick as the man stalked forward, forcing him against the wall. He grabbed Akito's chin and shoved it up so their eyes met. "Akito, this spirit inside of you chose you because there was a lacking in your soul. You could have changed that the moment you were born, but you chose not to. Whether you choose to believe it or not, destiny is decided in that single moment between birth and your first complete thought. You, and you alone of the zodiac, chose to perpetuate this cycle. You wanted power over others, and the Emperor spirit chose that time to jump from his last vessel to you." Eriol released his chin with disgust, but glared into his eyes to see the panic of the spirit inside him flicker weakly. "and you welcomed it with open arms. You embraced it, and used it." He stepped back and let the boy fall, limply to the ground.

"Shut up." Akito panted, feeling as if he'd run a mile in cement slippers.

"I would have stepped in before, but I had no idea how badly this had spread. And I had other, more important matters to attend to."

"Leave."

"You will allow the children to use the books. They must find out for themselves what it is they lack. Once they do, the seeds of this curse will be abolished, and you, my dear Emperor, will have no hold over them."

"No one will read my private books."

"Yes, they will." Eriol's eyes flashed as if lightning had somehow become captured in his pupils.

"Leave now."

"I'm not going anywhere until you swear to me, you will not impede the children in any way. You will not punish them for this. You will cease your manipulations against the zodiac, or I will come back and we'll find out if my new powers are as daunting as my old ones were."

"Go…" Akito stood, his back against the wall to steady himself. "And never return." His fist clenched. Akito launched himself at the man. He bounced off something an inch from Eriol's face. "It won't work." Akito stared at the man, shaking as he leaned against the wall. Eriol reached out his hand and wrapped it around Akito's skinny neck. He then dragged the boy to the futon in the middle of the room and threw him down on it. Akito sprawled, but stared up at the man with worried eyes. He no longer glared, but was more amazed at his inability to cowl the man.

"HATORI!" Akito shrieked, his arms and legs thrashing wildly.

"Swear to me." Eriol insisted.

"HATORI!"

"Now." Eriol grabbed the boys chin again and forced him to look into his eyes.

"I Swear." he said breathlessly still.

"Good."

And then he was gone, the door slid open and Akito started. Hatori, his doctor, and the dragon of the zodiac stepped in, his robe thrown on hastily as if he had jumped from bed and started running. His hair, usually combed carefully to hide his blind eye, was sticking wildly in different directions.

"Akito-san?" the boy was sitting straight up in bed, staring at the wall, shivering madly.

"Hatori?" he took a deep breath and looked over at the doctor.

"What's wrong?" he walked into the room and took Akito's pulse. His heart was beating so fast Hatori was amazed it hadn't burst.

"If anyone comes and wants to look at my books, let them." he whispered, then fainted dead away.


I really have no idea how the curse came to be or how it could be disspelled. like i said earlier i only know up to book 8, and they don't explain it in the anime. but for some reason, my version seems to make sense to me. i thought it would be interesting if this was the case. Anyway, yes, i know that it seemed a little OC for Eriol to be so mean, but then again, he didn't really let up much on Sakura when he knew she had to change the cards. So maybe its not really that OC. I just like how hard-ass he was.

i had to write this thing like, three times before i got to the point where i liked it enough to post. Someday i'm going to take this whole thing and just edit until its really good. but until then, enjoy this version. please!